ph/conductivity

[limige]

how does each affect breeding for your pairs?

it is ancient wisdom that ph be a little acidic, around 6.0. But, I hear of people breeding in all sorts of ph levels. It's more about keeping it constant than it is the actual number. As far as conductivity....100 or less. I've heard of people going around 30 but that seems a bit low for me.
Good luck,
Brad

[limige]

yes, but what do changes the levels acutally do for the fish.

are you just trying for higher fertility from the male, or will the female lay more eggs or what.

i'm beginning to think it's more about the male for fertility but i was hoping someone would clear this up for me.

at a higher conductivity, the eggs are much less likely to be penetrated by the male's fertilizing, and therefore produce very low hatch rates, so that's why you want it low.

As for keeping conditions constant through water changes, this is done to prevent stress on the fish. Discus stress very easily when their water conditions change quickly.

I hope this answers your questions.

Brad

Someone correct me if Im wrong....

The eggs will still be fertilized properly with a high cond/tds reading(given acceptable pH)....the problem comes later when the high cond/tds causes the membrane of the egg to calcify. The calcification reduces (or completely inhibit's) the exchange of oxygen from within the egg....the membrane hardens....the embryo suffocates.

The sperm is effected by the ph of the water.....sorry but I dont recall the zact numbers for ideal pH. Off the top of my head Im gonna say between 5.5 and 6.5 with acceptable being anywhere between 4.5 and 7.5

some of these numbers could be off....This is just what I recall from conversations(arguments) waaay back in the D.I.P. days. Its always made sense and worked for me.

Tony

[April]

yeppers...tony. thats the way i heard it also...way back when as far as the calcification goes also. good ole days... lol.
and brad....as far as 30 ms gettin a bit low...well....mine is 30ms right out of my tap. ;D I have about 100 wigglers right now. and our ph is usually 6.3. now hows that for tap water? no aging even..just pour cooler water out of the tap and do a 90 percent change when they are ready..or actually daily till they spawn,. soon as they get their nice clean new cooler water away they go.
after they eggs..i gotta carefully change a bit of water or.ph slides real fast at that low ms.

April...i wish I lived there....mine out of the tap is 600 ppm or 1200 microsiemens... I was just saying that I'd heard someone say their ph crashed at 30...that may not be so. I meant 30 microsiemens, which is 15 ppm anyway...so who knows...lol

whatever works is the way to go!!! (I'm the master of the obvious)